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Firefox 4 web browser speed increases

Mozilla announced today that the latest version of Firefox which is being beta tested right now, called Firefox 4, the browser focuses on faster start-up times brought by making improvements elsewhere in the code.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Firefox 4 beta 9 debuts new under-the-hood code for bookmarking and history. You won’t see any interface changes to those features, although they do load faster now. As a consequence of those snappier load times, the browser itself will start faster, the company said in a blog post. When comparing the averages of three “cold boot” runs, each of which started from the computer turned off and ended with fully loading 11 JavaScript-intensive pages, between Firefox 4 beta 9 and the previous beta 8, Firefox 4 beta 9 came in nearly 10 seconds faster. Firefox 4 beta 8 averaged 41.04 seconds until all the pages had loaded, while Firefox 4 beta 9 averaged 32.48 seconds.

A new database standard has also debuted in the latest Firefox beta. Called IndexedDB, the technology replaces Web SQL and has been extensively used for managing user data in offline situations. A final and minor change to Firefox 4 beta 9 brings the tab bar up a few pixels, so it now sits on the same row as the Firefox menu button. The top of the browser now looks extremely similar to Opera 11.

All in all this new version of Firefox will most likely solidify and continue it’s popularity. It’s really looking good so far!